


Guardian, The

by HASA_Archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon - Engaging gap-filler, Characters - Well-handled emotions, Fourth Age, General, Plot - Bittersweet, Writing - Engaging style, Writing - Every word counts, Writing - Well-handled PoV(s), Writing - Well-handled dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 07:19:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3759347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HASA_Archivist/pseuds/HASA_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By the shores of the sea, a wandering Elf meets a lost Queen. Starring Arwen and Maglor. Start of Fourth Age.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guardian, The

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

A/N: Fic featuring Arwen and a mysterious Elf, one you may know if you've  
read the Silmarillion. I'm not very productive at the mo, but when this  
character wakes me up at 3am and demands a story, I usually comply.  
Very much inspired by Le Chat Noir's "The Last Chapter". Major thanks to  
her for acquainting me with a truly interesting Elf. Also, big shiny thanks  
to Mouse for kindly beta-reading.

I have made up the  
attempts at Haradric and Forochelin language, so if you can find a right  
translation (I looked and failed) then do tell me. (

The Guardian (Name may change when I think of something that sounds more  
profound and less like a highbrow English newspaper)

~~~

 

 

They said he was there from the beginning.

Before the broken hills were worn down into beaches by the relentless ebb  
and flow of the tide. Before the new rivers cut their courses in the  
changed land. Before the memories of men could reach.

He walked the new shores of the changed world, clad in black, as if to  
avoid being seen on a dark night. In his hand, they said, he held a harp,  
the like of which had not been seen since the Elder Days that were  
forgotten. And sometimes, when the sea rose up in storm, so too would his  
voice, a sound of the ancient world that would echo across the cliffs and  
lonely shores.

As time passed, the Elves that yet remained on Middle-Earth grew weary of  
the mortal lands, desiring the promised eternal bliss and beauty of  
Valinor. But as their ships sped into the West, they stood beneath white  
sails and looked back at their long home with sorrow and regret. Sometimes,  
they saw with their keen eyesight a tiny black shape against the white  
foam, and sometimes, they heard his voice rise with the wind, singing a  
melody never heard by mortal ear before. Many of the Elves who saw him knew  
him not, but stayed a while to listen, feeling strangely calmed and  
comforted by the sound of his voice. They named him Tirno among themselves,  
"The watcher," for as they saw it, he always stood on the shores to watch  
them speed safely into the west. Those among the Elves who knew, or guessed  
at his identity remained silent, and stood and watched their homes sink  
into the mists of the horizon.

As the Elves left Middle-Earth, villages of men grew up on the shores of  
the sea. Some swore that they had seen a dark figure, wandering the beaches  
as the tides rose up in anger, or on the clifftops late at night, singing  
and harping in the moonlight. Yet as it seemed to them, the sea was kind to  
those who had seen him, or heard his voice. At the spring high tides, the  
villagers made praise to Uinen, to thank her for protecting them from the  
wrath of Ossë. In the feasting, thanks were given also to the Guardian of  
the Waves, for protecting their fishing boats near the shore and allowed  
their village to prosper.

Unbeknownst to them, the Guardian of the Waves looked on, and smiled.

The years fled the mortal lands faster than wind. Streams became rivers,  
cut deep valleys in the landscape, then dried up and ran no more. Mountains  
rose from the deeps of the Earth, then fell, to be raised up again.  
Villages, towns, cities grew, and were lost.

The Guardian merely watched as kingdoms rose and fell.

He wandered far across the world, always walking beside the sea, sometimes  
singing of things unknown to those who saw him. On the frozen coasts of the  
far North, the Snow-men of Forochel saw him and named him "Râvarkan" in  
their own tongue, "He who searches". In the heat of the South, where the  
desert met the ocean, the Haradrim walked, and they too saw him. They named  
him "îngin-ma-ráhwn", the protector of ships. He knew the coasts of the  
world, and he walked, barefoot in the foam, as the years went by.

There came a time of winter, when the wind blew hard and chill from the  
North. Few now lived by the shores. The Elves were gone, and their songs  
and laughter silenced from the mortal lands forever, save one. The beaches  
lay cold and deserted beneath a lowering dark winter sky. The sea roared,  
its high pillars of foam crashing against the cliffs. The Guardian closed  
his eyes, and let the wind whistle through his dark hair.

Come to me. Come to me. The sea commanded.

Not yet, it is not yet time, was his reply.

A few rocks broke away from a cliff and slipped into the sea. New beaches  
will be formed, and old ones lost. That is the way of mortal lands,  
everything grows old and eventually dies. I will remain the same.

They wait for you. Why do you not come?

I will. Just not yet.

His ears became aware of a sound that was not the wind or the sea, and  
simultaneously he looked up. And there was another.

He approached her cautiously. It had been long years since the Guardian of  
the Waves had allowed himself to be seen by another. However, this lone  
figure meant no threat to him. He sensed her kindness, her good heart, and  
her sorrow, deeper than the deepest depths of the sea. But she turned then,  
and he saw her eyes, young as a fair willow tree lost to the years long  
ago, grey as the twilight under the stars, and sparkling with the memory of  
many happenings. As he drew closer, he saw the hand of age had touched her.  
Her dark hair was frosted with grey, her face, although elven-fair, was  
lined with time and sorrow and joy. Around her shoulders she wore a black  
cloak alike to his own, and tears glistened on her cheeks, mixed with the  
salt water of the sea.

"What do you look for on the tide?" he asked.

"It is beyond my sight." She said. "A mist lies on the bay of Eldamar, and  
there is no ship left to take me there."

"What is your name?" He asked.

The woman looked up. "I am but an old woman with no place to go. But once I  
was Arwen Undómiel, the Queen of Gondor and the Evenstar of her people."  
She smiled bitterly. "And I know who you are. I have heard of the Guardian  
of the Waves. When I was a child, my father would sing to me of you, how  
you wander the shores and still the tides."

As she spoke, Arien and her vessel of fire slipped below the horizon. The  
sky began to darken into twilight.

"The Evening is over," she said. "The night comes now."

As they watched the sunset, the Guardian became aware of a glimmer rising  
in the West. Shutting his eyes, he turned away. The rising of Gil-Estel was  
a time of memory for him. A time of memory long-forgotten by others, and  
pain only he knew of those that lived. Beneath the twilit folds of his  
cloak, his left hand clenched tightly.

But when he looked up, he saw the woman's face was lifted up to the dying  
sun, the gentle light of the star shining down on her face. Gil-Estel, the  
star of high hope. The Evenstar of her people.

"The night may be coming." He said after a time. "But hope still shines in  
the West."

At this, Arwen's eyes brightened. "Can you not help me?" she asked. "Are  
you not of the Maiar, or of the lesser Valar? Surely you can take me there?  
Surely you can."

"I am but an Elf," he said. "I have no power to bring back those that are  
dead, or bring ships back from the West. I too have been left behind."

Her dark head drooped in disappointment. "There is no hope for me, then. I  
will never see the bright city of the Calacirya that my father told me of.  
It is a bitter world that he leaves to me, bitter and hard and without  
hope."

"There is always hope," said the Guardian with a new light in his eyes.  
From beneath his cloak he took a harp and began to test the strings. Arwen  
watched in fascination as each string rang out a clear, sweet note. The sea  
fell quiet, and the birds stopped calling from the clifftops.

Only when all was quiet did the Guardian of the Seas begin to play.

His melody was strange, and it seemed to Arwen that the sea and the wind  
joined in with his song. His voice was deep as the ocean yet clear as a  
stream. He sang of times past, of the woe and sorrow of the Elves, the red  
blood of many a battle fought in vain. He sang of the fading time, the  
white sails on the sea of another ship leaving into the West. He sang of  
the cold foam of the many shores around the world, and of his kin, names  
remembered only by lore-masters, Elves who waited still in Mandos. But as  
he sang he wove in a theme of hope, of change, of renewing. He sang that  
Arda Marred would be made again, that the Elves and Men and all those that  
were free and good would walk together again, in the world which Ilúvatar  
had intended for them.

The sun was long gone beneath the horizon, and the sky was fully dark  
before he finished. Arwen was sitting on a rock, her face raised in wonder,  
her cheeks wet with tears. He bowed his head a short time when his song  
finally ceased. The sea began to wash the shore again, as if waking from a  
dream. Far above, a sea bird called, and another answered.

"Rise, Evenstar." He said, offering her his arm. "Go to a place where you  
can find rest. Fear not, for when Arda Marred is made Arda Healed, you will  
walk with him again."

"And you?"

For the first time in many long years, the Guardian smiled.

"I will be there, with my family again, and all will be made right. This is  
what the Valar teach. Now, you must go."

Arwen found no words to say. It seemed that no words were needed. But it  
seemed the weakness of age left her body, and she walked tall and proud as  
a great queen of old. The Guardian stood by and watched until she vanished  
into the mists of the morning.

"Namárië."* He said, as the first glimmers of day began to shine on the  
Western Sea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* "Namárië" - "Farewell", but you knew that.


End file.
